


Fire and Ice

by Write_like_an_American



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Also bad BDSM etiquette, But it doesn't end that way, He's only mentioned posthumously, I can't believe I'm publishing this, It starts off consensual, M/M, Non con warning like woah, Sorry if those tags are misleading, The Athelnar is only implied m'fraid, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 13:48:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3694565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Write_like_an_American/pseuds/Write_like_an_American
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The towers are built. The warriors are ready, for victory or Valhalla. But Ragnar still grieves for a lost friend, and a murderer cannot walk unpunished.</p>
<p> Paris falls tomorrow. Floki pays tonight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire and Ice

**Author's Note:**

> In case you missed the tags - this contains **NON-CONSENSUAL SEX**. As in, **RAPE**. The sex begins with the consent of both parties, but everything goes downhill swiftly. If you want to avoid non con entirely, don't even read the first part - Ragnar's thoughts are pretty dark throughout. There's also some mild BDSM-content that doesn't follow the 'safe, sane, consensual' rule. And a very poor use of lube-substitute. Read at your own peril. 
> 
> Also: fellow Floki-fans, I can only apologise. I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote this, other than it was very late and I'd been watching a lot of Game of Thrones.

They attack at first light. For now though, the warriors and shieldmaidens have been dispatched to their tents, ordered to get some sleep before the final charge. 

Floki, as ever, is incapable of heeding good advice. Ragnar watches him through narrowed eyes. He bounces from tower to tower, checking the ropes, mimicking the angles of the toppermost ladders with his forearms and scowling and muttering to himself. Helga’s attempt to persuade him to retire for the night ends with him flapping her away and bounding off to swarm a teetering tower at the far edge of the construction zone. He bobs along its crest, a dark silhouette against the speckled stars. “Floki,” Helga hisses again. Ragnar, lounging unseen against the siege tower’s base, holds his breath and strains to hear the soft words. “Floki, please come down. You’re scaring me.” Not long until she gives up then. Ragnar counts the heartbeats, until her quiet pleading fades to sighs. “I’ll bring you breakfast in the morning?” she offers, but without much hope. There’s no reply, only a high fey cackle. Floki dances overhead, tireless, powered by desperation and devotion and the gods in his head. 

Helga’s known Floki long enough to know when taming him is feasible, and when it’s a lost cause. Her head droops, weighed down by her frothy mantle of hair, and she turns back to camp. She walks right past Ragnar, within easy grabbing distance. Ragnar fists his hands into the sleeves of his tunic. The urge to _hurt_ Floki in the way Floki had hurt him is gnawing at his gut, and if Helga turns and catches sight of him, if she tries to strike up one of their stilted conversations that are laced with that shared, awful knowledge of what Floki has done, Ragnar isn’t sure if he’ll be able to control himself. He isn’t sure he’d want to. 

So he focusses on the capering shadow that merges and detaches from the inky sky above, waiting until Helga’s soft footsteps have faded before moving forwards. 

“Floki,” he calls. “Come down.” Echoing Helga’s words means that it takes a moment for Floki to realise it is him and not his wife. Then the figure pauses, clever fingers abandoning whatever minor flaw they have taken upon themselves to fix. 

“Ragnar?” Floki asks, voice tentative. Ragnar, unsure of how visible his face is from Floki’s vantage, makes his smile is wide and welcoming. 

“We’ll need you at your best if you’re to lead the attack tomorrow,” he says. He doesn’t mention that it’s too dark to work, or that Floki should really eat something other than mushrooms and wine. The words are chosen so that Floki knows his newfound responsibility can be revoked at any time. But the boatbuilder either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care; he lets out a gleeful giggle and comes swinging down the tower at breakneck speed, jumping the last two metres to crash to a halt at Ragnar’s feet. 

“And let me guess,” he says, jumping from foot-to-foot. He looks confident, energetic, _happy_. Everything Ragnar wants him to be – for the lack of all those things will smart all the worse, for having allowed Floki a taste. His old friend sidles closer and prods a bony finger into Ragnar’s chest. “You’ve come to tell me to sleep. Do you not have enough children to cluck over already, mother hen?” Ragnar laughs – it’s not entirely forced, his conversations with Floki always leave him feeling lighter, more buoyant. That hasn’t changed. He might even miss it. 

“You’re no child to me,” he says, keeping his tone light. Affectionate. “You’re a man. A friend. An equal. And I need you.” _This is what he wants to hear._ So Ragnar thinks to himself, and it’s proven when Floki’s teasing expression opens into something much more vulnerable, and he leans into his words as if they’re a touch, a caress. Ragnar continues. “It is the night before the attack, and Odin must be honoured if we want our victory.” Floki’s eyes are wide and hungry behind their thick kohl rims, devouring every word. When he hears Odin’s name he goes rigid. Then any tension that had remained in his shoulders releases. _Relief_. Relief that Ragnar still believes. Relief that Ragnar is still _his_. Ragnar smiles again, cinching his victory, and nods back over his shoulder at the sprawling encampment. 

“They’ve already sacrificed the goats, so I’m here to offer you a drink. No mead. But wine will do.” 

They wind through the silent camp, twisting between stretched tent-hides and shorn prickly tree stumps. Floki’s fingers dance at his sides. His gaze flits from point to point, catching on the gleam of discarded mailcoats under moonlight, the edge of an axe-blade, an offering bowl still sticky with residue. Ragnar’s head, in contrast, remains bowed to his chest. Floki thinks he is watching his feet, but he’s actually following the twinkling bounce of the crucifix around his neck. Ragnar would rather walk in silence. That’s a rare luxury though, where Floki is concerned. The boatbuilder dictates stories and visions; it’s the half-technical, half-devotional prattle Ragnar remembers from the woods around Kattegat, when Floki had explained how his boat would dance over the waves, curved like a woman’s body from neck to thigh. Embellished with outflung arms and wild gesticulation, he in equal parts praises his own ingenuity as a craftsman and that of the gods who guide him. 

Now, like then, Ragnar smiles and nods along. 

Now, unlike then, there’s another face behind his eyelids as he hooks Floki by the elbow and guides him under the flaps of his tent. 

The face is rounded at the chin and soft around the brows. It wears a foreigner’s cross at its throat; the same cross now hangs at his. But beneath the warmth of those dark eyes there’s bravery and fierceness and a bright spark of curiosity. He is everything that Ragnar admires. Only now… Now that same face is cold and lifeless. There’s a bloody gash gaping between its eyes, cleaving its skull down the middle to reveal the ripe red innards. 

There has been no confession. No evidence had been left at the scene of the crime. There are as many potential suspects as there were men in the hall that night when Rollo revealed the monk’s bare arm. 

But Ragnar knows – Ragnar knows. And Ragnar seethes and hates. 

The tent is darker than the night outside. A close darkness, oppressing and stifling as a blanket pressed across the face. It will be darker still once they tie the tent flaps. But for now, the moon squints down at them like a gouged white scar, shading Ragnar’s shabby trappings in silver. 

Ragnar settles onto his heap of blankets, and Floki flops down crosslegged besides him without having to be asked. He starts glancing around for the promised wine. When Ragnar shoots him a look, he giggles sheepishly and sits on his hands to stop himself fidgeting. Relaxed – or as relaxed as Floki ever allows himself to be. Content. Completely and utterly _trusting_. 

Athelstan had looked at him like that. When Ragnar promised to protect him. 

Ragnar’s chest feels numb and hollow as he reaches under the bedspread and drags out two horns and a stoppered gourd. 

The wine is sweet and red. Ragnar had it skimmed from the barrel King Ecbert had gifted him, the one which now resides in the Kattegat store. Wine for an occasion. It doesn’t feel fitting, somehow, that he should feed Floki from the stock of kings, but it is necessary. To maintain the illusion. And if it will taste sour in his mouth for the knowledge of who is sharing it with him, it will become all the sweeter when that illusion breaks. 

Scent blossoms when he levers out the cork; fruity, musky, earth and air. Floki inhales hungrily. His eyes are bright and dark as a bird’s. The horn Ragnar gave him bounces impatiently between his knees, and he eyes Ragnar, but makes no attempt to reach for the wine, waiting on his command. 

What a loyal friend he might have been. 

Ragnar smiles, chest hollow. He holds his gaze as he pours. Floki doesn’t break that gaze, even as the fragrant red stream splashes into the horn, and he eagerly returns Ragnar’s grin. Ragnar pours his own, and lifts the horn to his lips first, just in case Floki was harbouring any doubts. But the boatbuilder has no such qualms; he’s sucking on his horn before Ragnar’s finished his first mouthful. Red drops slither through his beard. 

Ragnar wonders, for a moment, how long it’s last been since Floki’s eaten, drunk, had any sustenance at all. Then he remembers that he doesn’t care. 

He takes his horn from his lips before it is less than a quarter empty. Floki, heedless, continues to drink in noisy gulps. His dark-ringed eyes only leave Ragnar’s when they drift shut, slivering to blissful crescents. When he finally puts the horn down, drained, his mouth is wet and he’s breathing heavily in triumph. Ragnar snorts. 

“You drink too much on an empty stomach, you’ll get sick.” Floki giggles at the chastisement, emboldened by the alcohol, and holds up his horn for more. Amused, Ragnar obliges him – but when Floki makes to throw the next one back, he lays a firm hand on his forearm and forces the horn down. _“Slow,”_ he warns. Floki pouts but obeys. He laps at the wine like a pup instead, and Ragnar, despite himself, feels an odd rush of affection; a nostalgia of sorts, for what once was and can never be again. 

He takes measured drafts of his own cup and leans back, elbows digging into the soft pelts. His gaze finds the open tent flaps. 

“Close them,” he orders. Floki makes a displeased noise at having to be parted from his horn. But he doesn’t argue. Ragnar waits in silence as the lanky boatbuilder – towerbuilder now –lopes ungracefully to the tent’s entrance. Like him – like all of them – Floki’s been drinking since he was old enough to attend a þing. He could fight a hólmgang on a bellyful of mead, let alone one cupful. Still, his fingers fumble with the leather thong holding the flaps back, and he worries his wine-stained lips, bending over the knot with his forehead scrunched up like Lagertha’s does when she’s playing civil with people she’d like nothing more than to blood eagle. 

Ragnar supposes that if Lagertha was in his place, her brows would be ruckling now. 

He drains his horn, then rises. Floki doesn’t look up at his approach – too at ease in his presence, too assured that Ragnar will not hurt him. Ragnar does not take advantage. But the knowledge that he could makes blood thrum through his hollow chest. 

He moves to stand behind Floki, shunting both of them forwards until his shorter arms can reach the knot. Their bodies bump, and Floki tenses infinitesimally before relaxing back against him. Ragnar’s hands cover his. Floki’s fingers are cold and thin. Ragnar squeezes them before prying them away and finishing the job himself. 

“They’re tough enough in daylight,” he grunts. Floki nods, shoulders hunched slightly but making no move to pull away. Ragnar’s sudden proximity seemed to have robbed him of his voice. Ragnar fills the silence, hooking his thumbnail under a tight loop and working it loose. “Tomorrow will be a hard battle. We will lose many good men, many good women.” Floki nods again. Ragnar rests his chin on his shoulder, beard scratching Floki’s neck. He notes the flush peeking from under the kohl on Floki’s ears, and hides his smile in sweat-smelling leather. Pretending to be engrossed puzzling the maze of under and overtwining strings, Ragnar presses closer. Lightly – so lightly it could have been mistaken for an accident – he shifts so that the top of his thigh rests against the back of Floki’s legs. There’s a near-silent exhale. Then those legs slide apart. His thigh lays along the seam of Floki’s, his knee inched into the warm space Floki has made. 

Ragnar finally frees the loop. Floki’s hands hover, indecisive, as his king finishes with the knot and steps away. Ragnar doesn’t look at him as he drags a handful of heavy material across the tent’s gaping mouth. The nearest tents are dark and silent. Midnight has just passed, and their warriors are burrowed into their furs, dreaming of blood and glory. It’s a good night, clear and still. 

Once upon a time, he would have stayed up to enjoy it. Climbed the cliffs and stood with nothing between his skull and the bright stars. Once upon a time, Athelstan might have joined him. 

Ragnar pulls the flap down completely, shutting the night out. The darkness multiplies tenfold. It’s sudden and stark – he hears the hitch in Floki’s breathing. 

“Shall I light a candle?” he asks, keeping his voice at its lowest register. Floki nods, remembers Ragnar can’t see him, and says “yes”. Ragnar pads to his bundle of supplies, navigating surely through the dark. He makes sure not to collide with Floki. As a result, the boatbuilder is left unmoored, standing just before where the roof cloth dips dramatically down towards Ragnar’s bed. If he takes one step back, his head will brush the ceiling and he’ll be able to follow it until he gets his bearings. But Floki doesn’t feel around. He doesn’t reach out. He doesn’t even move – just stands there in the dark, breathing fast and shallow, waiting for Ragnar. 

Locating his sack, Ragnar fumbles his candles free and cracks two flints over them until they spark. When he next sees Floki’s face it’s lit from below by the wavering flame, skull-like and hellish. The kohl streaks on his cheeks are unsymmetrical; one skews more towards his nose at its tip, unnoticeable when the man is in motion. Floki is drawn to the light like a moth. He drops to his knees besides Ragnar and cups the flame, threatening to either burn himself or smother it. Ragnar hastily relocates it out of reach. He lights a second candle from the first – Floki _beams_ as the wicks kiss and flare – and settles them both securely into the grooves carved into the earth for that purpose. 

“There,” Ragnar says, rubbing his palms. “Better, yes?” Not waiting for a reply, he pats for Floki to join him on the bed once more. Floki is fixated on the two fluttering flames, but he shuffles over, still on his knees, and squeezes in as close to the fire as he can – which means, as close to Ragnar. Their knees brush. Ragnar feels Floki shiver more than he sees it. 

_Perfect_. Floki is everything Ragnar has expected – compliant and eager, pitifully desperate for the scraps of affection he throws his way. This will be easy. 

With that in mind, the next time Floki’s leg jitters, Ragnar clamps his hand down over it. He rubs Floki’s leg through the rough fabric, kneading the muscle, relishing the tremble. 

“You’re like a baby goat,” he teases, keeping his voice light. Presses down with his palm and feels Floki jolt. “Can’t sit still for a moment.” 

“At least I don’t smell like a goat,” Floki grumbles. But although his hand grabbed Ragnar’s wrist on instinct the moment contact was made, it seems more like he’s holding him in place than dissuading the grip. Ragnar pretends to be offended. 

“Are you saying your King smells of goats?” Floki cackles, knee jerking under Ragnar’s hand. Ragnar lets his palm drag up the thigh, just a little way, while Floki is too busy giggling to notice. He plays with the rough, worn fabric without really paying attention to the man beneath, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger and scratching his nails over where a thread threatens to unravel. “We’ve been friends for a long time, haven’t we, Floki,” he says. Floki lifts one shoulder and drops the other. 

“I suppose.” 

“Would you say that we understand each other?” Floki tries to meet his eyes, but Ragnar doesn’t glance at him, too busy picking at the loose thread. 

“I understand that you’re putting holes in my trousers,” Floki says, trying for a joke. “Helga will make you darn them.” It falls a little flat. But Ragnar huffs a laugh anyway, and ceases his efforts. 

“I can think of worse fates than being ordered around by your lovely wife.” He removes his hand – Floki jumps again, mouth twitching downwards in disappointment. Ragnar rocks back on his heels, studying his friend with an unreadable stare. The mouth beneath the eyes are smiling, but those eyes are glacial in more than colour, and Floki shifts uncomfortably beneath their scrutiny. “If we understand eachother,” he says eventually, “you also understand that in giving you this command, I am trusting you not just with my life, but with the lives of those I love.” Not exactly a lie. Although, now that the person he loved most is dead and gone, all other loves are as dull as candle flames held up to the sun. Floki is oblivious. 

“Yes,” he breathes. His eyes glimmer, reflecting the juddering flames. Inside their thick kohl circles, his pupils look liquid, and Ragnar reaches up to cup his cheek although every instinct is snarling for him to rip those eyes from their sockets. Floki tilts his head to maximise the contact. Belatedly, Ragnar remembers making his speech to his men, remembers running his fingers over Floki’s scalp and through his short tufts of hair. He repeats the action now, wondering if Floki remembers it too. The shaved skin on the sides of Floki’s skull feels velvety, and his hair is soft as a child’s. When Ragnar rubs his knuckles over his temple, he’s rewarded with a squeaky noise from the back of Floki’s throat. He forces another laugh. 

“See, you even bleat like a goat.” Floki, of course, takes that as his cue to _actually_ start bleating, which might once have had Ragnar in stitches. Now though, he just pinches the lobe of Floki’s ear, and uses it to tug him into a kiss. 

_Might as well get this over with._

The bleating stops. 

So does everything else. Floki’s twitching, his breathing – if Ragnar couldn’t feel his pulse fluttering against his thumb, where it was pushed into the carotid on the left of Floki’s neck, he’d think his heart had stopped too. His lips are sticky from the wine and soft with surprise. But when Ragnar licks over them, they open for him without hesitation. It takes Floki a few seconds longer to catch up with what his mouth is doing. When it does, he makes a quiet noise and traces the tip of his tongue over Ragnar’s. Ragnar hums and pulls back so that if Floki wants to keep kissing him, he has to close the distance, and finds himself immediately with a lapful of skinny shipbuilder. 

Their beards scratch, noses colliding. Ragnar has to be the one to guide Floki’s head back, as the other man has apparently forgotten that they need to breath. When they break apart Floki giggles again, high and unbelieving, and runs shaking fingers over his mouth. 

“Did you put mushrooms in the wine?” he asks. His knees bracket Ragnar’s hips. When he leans in for another kiss, his skin is flushed and fever-warm. Ragnar indulges him. He can almost pretend it’s Athelstan in his arms – although Floki is thinner and taller than Athelstan ever was, bony from years spent dashing through the forests and pounding mushrooms into his soup so that he threw it up later. His beard is not as coarse and his hair not as full, and he smells of sap and tar and kohl, rather than ink and old books. Ragnar isn’t sure if he’s thankful for the differences or not. He never kissed Athelstan – although he would have done, had the priest allowed him to. They had been friends, but they could have been so much more. Floki had taken that all away. It seems sacrilegious, somehow, to pollute Athelstan’s memory with his murderer’s body. 

So Ragnar focusses on those differences, hones his attention to what it is that makes Floki _Floki_. His mental simulacra of Athelstan simmers away in the back of his mind, feeding into cold hate. He scrapes his nails down the tattooed fang on Floki’s throat and catches his lower lip between his incisors. It’s not enough to hurt but enough to make Floki groan and press closer, grinding his skinny hips down. Ragnar catches them, hauls them back up again, hooking Floki by his belt loops and holding him steady. If Floki had any protests, they’re lost when Ragnar licks a line from his mouth to the crook between his jawbone and his ear, and then nibbles delicately down the path his nails had followed a few seconds before. 

“I’m going to fuck you,” he murmurs, once he reaches Floki’s collarbones. Floki, head thrown back, nods and shudders. Ragnar sucks a dark bruise at the end of the fang, marring its clean point. Sweat and smoke and tree sap coil across his tongue. 

_I’m going to make you scream,_ he promises to himself, as he undoes the clasp on Floki’s belt and drops it besides the bed. 

Wrapping his arms around Floki’s legs, he pulls them further apart. Floki’s knees drag over the heavy furs. His fingers scrabble at Ragnar’s shoulders for purchase, but Ragnar holds him steady and looks into his eyes. _You think the gods are smiling on you, rewarding you._ Floki’s bright gaze, his lips that shake around their too-big smile, tells Ragnar he’s right. He answers Floki’s wild grin with one of his own. _You are wrong. The gods cannot protect you from me._

In this state, he could tell Floki to chop off his hand and offer it to Tyr and the fool would obey. Still, as he heaves the weighty mail coat over Floki’s head – Floki realises he should lift his arms too late, elbows snagging on the tight-woven chains – he turns his previous statement into a question. 

“ _Can_ I fuck you, Floki? Will you let me?” Floki, distracted beneath the layer of grey mail-links that’s threatening to smother him, grunts his approval. Ragnar shakes his head and helps him lift the heavy outercoat away. Floki’s face emerges, flushed and sweaty, candle light glancing from his nose. He’s looking at him like he can’t quite believe this isn’t all some mushroom-induced hallucination, so Ragnar darts in and gives him another kiss, rolling their tongues together before he gets to work on his undershirt. When that’s done they’re both panting, spit trailing between their lips. Ragnar looks at Floki from under his brows and shoves him back on the furs. 

It’s rougher than he intended, but Floki doesn’t complain. He bounces with the motion, arching up to grind their clothed crotches together. Ragnar’s not hard, not yet, but Floki doesn’t need to know that. He pulls away before Floki can touch him, pretending to be distracted by the network of old scars and new bruises that twine down Floki’s torso like a fleshy tapestry. Every warrior has his scars. Floki no more or less – his speed is mitigated by his refusal to use a shield. Still, one particular scar catches Ragnar’s attention. 

“Rollo,” Ragnar states, fingering it. It runs under Floki’s ribs on the right hand side, an ugly white rosette. Those same ribs – too defined to be healthy, heaving under Floki’s grubby skin like they want to break free – twitch away from the touch, and Ragnar pauses, wondering if the memory of his brother’s betrayal still smarts. But Floki’s giggling again, muffling the sound in his palm. So Ragnar, taking a chance, gives it a lick. The flesh is soft, ropy at the edges, and paler than its surrounds. When Ragnar flattens his tongue against the old wound, giving it an open-mouthed kiss, Floki’s laughter becomes something else entirely, breathy and high and helpless. His hips buck up so violently that Ragnar has to dodge to avoid being slammed in the crotch. 

“Whoops,” Floki mutters. But his sheepish voice is at odds to his wicked grin. 

Ragnar growls and kisses Floki again. He kisses him like he’s kissed Lagertha and kisses Aslaug, like he imagined he might one day kiss Athelstan, albeit with one knee pressing low on Floki’s belly to prevent him from grinding up. Floki’s fingers wind in Ragnar’s beard, shy as Gyda’s used to be after he returned from the summer raids. He’s a meld of eagerness and nervousness. His obvious arousal is tempered by a desire – a _need_ – to please Ragnar, to do this Ragnar’s way, and when Ragnar presses his shoulders onto the furs Floki keeps them there of his own accord. 

It should be endearing. It would be, if Ragnar could feel anything other than hate. As it is, the show of submissiveness is enough to stir the first dregs of warmth in Ragnar’s groin. He makes the most of the opportunity, rubbing his flaccid cock through his long tunic until it starts to fill, and kisses Floki the whole while. 

“Take off your trousers,” he mutters into Floki’s neck, once he’s ready. 

Floki’s forehead creases for a moment, and he wriggles as if attempting to divest himself of his remaining clothes without lifting his shoulders from the mat. Ragnar sighs and takes over, stripping Floki quickly and efficiently, while he himself remains full clothed. He props Floki’s boots at a safe distance from the candles, and turns back to make a dispassionate assessment of the scrawny, dirty body bared before him. 

Floki’s lower half, like his upper, is entirely too thin and coated with a good week’s worth of grime. Ragnar’s almost tempted to dunk him in the river before proceeding. But there’d be no better mood-killer, especially as Floki can’t swim. Floki attempts to decipher Ragnar’s expression. Finding it devoid of any lust whatsoever, he frowns and curls in on himself, just slightly, his skinny calves half-buried in the thick wolf-pelt. 

“Ragnar?” he asks, voice breaking. Ragnar can’t verbally assure him, can’t lie and tell him he looks like anything other than a ratty animal dragged from its natural forest. But he can assure him in other ways. He lifts those calves, weighing the bones in each hand while Floki gasps and tangles his fingers in the soft fur, and hoists them to hook around his waist. Floki’s cock is pretty, unlike the rest of him: bobbing red over his pale stomach, a bit on the thin side, but as long as Ragnar’s own. A bead of translucent fluid drools from its tip. Ragnar releases his calf to take hold of it, squeezing gently. He teases back the foreskin and toys with it until the entire head is shiny and wet. Floki’s skull cracks back, hard enough to daze had they been on anything other than furs, and Ragnar’s prick throbs in response. 

It’s fun, to play with him like this. To touch Floki and have him twitch and twist beneath him as if his cock’s the reins and Ragnar the rider. They’ve done this before – most men do, on long sea voyages with no shieldmaidens to flirt with. Floki, already whispered about for his painted eyes and dabblings in magic, was avoided by most of the men and approached by a select few who wanted more than a quick tug under their sleeping sacks. Ragnar had heard that they rarely left unsatisfied. No one said the word argr, or accused him of ergi – at least, not after Ragnar became earl. But they all knew. 

Still palming Floki over, Ragnar struggles one-handed with the laces of his breeches. He doesn’t bother to remove the long grey tunic, just tucks the trailing front up into the belt as he kicks the breeches off to one side. His shoes end up besides Floki’s. They look oddly domestic, piled besides each other, but Ragnar doesn’t spare them a glance. Anticipation is coiling within him, a frigid balloon that expands within his chest. He pushes demanding fingers against Floki’s lips. Floki winces. When Ragnar forces his fingers into his mouth he sees blood, dribbling down Floki’s chin from where the lip caught on a tooth. 

“Suck,” he orders. Floki obeys. Blood and spit making a slippery mess, coating every thick callous on Ragnar’s fingers. He’s got two in Floki’s mouth at the moment, Floki’s lips a hot tight purse around them, and if he presses his knuckle up he can feel the ragged flap of skin that’s been torn loose. He grinds against it, revelling in Floki’s whine, and adds a third finger when he tries to pull away. “Suck,” he demands again, voice low. Floki takes one look at his eyes – the cold blue-grey of a winter fog – and tentatively rolls his tongue over Ragnar’s dirty nails. Ragnar feels it, slippery and warm. He groans low in his throat and – without warning – jabs his fingers in deep. Floki gags and chokes, slurping air. His teeth graze the tops of Ragnar’s fingers. But he doesn’t bite down. “There,” Ragnar says, once he’s bypassed the reflex, flexing his fingertips against the top of Floki’s throat. His knuckles stretch Floki’s broken lip, blood pooling between them. “You always swallow so well, Floki. I knew you could handle this.” The praise works. Floki’s hands unfist from the furs. They latch onto Ragnar’s sleeves, parsing the threads like they would the woodgrain on a split branch, and Floki rolls his head on his neck, dragging Ragnar’s fingers an impossible centimetre deeper and moaning around them. 

Ragnar’s cock jumps, mind swarming with memories of cold boats and sea spray and shared moments of intimacy after a hard battle. 

But he’s not doing this because he likes Floki. He’s not doing this because he’s attracted to Floki. He’s doing this because he hates Floki, and he knows that consummating that hatred with an act of love will make it all the more devastating once the depths of Ragnar’s loathing is revealed. 

Nevertheless there’s something powerfully erotic in the way that Floki – who snaps and snarls if he hears him speaking well of Christians, and slashes his way through a battlefield with an axe in each hand – gives himself to Ragnar without a breath of resistance. Ragnar controls his breathing. Loyalty, even misguided and unhealthy loyalty that would do anything for a pat on the head and a kind look, is aphrodisiac to a King. 

“There,” he says, pulling his slimy fingers free. Saliva and blood lathe them from tip to knuckle in a sticky sheathe. Floki collapses back, gasping. His mouth is swollen and spit smears down his chin, shining spiderwebs that thread through his wiry beard. When Ragnar pushes his hand into that dark, warm space between their bodies, Floki jerks and relaxes, every muscle going limp, smiling lazily up at Ragnar without a fragment of trepidation. Ragnar taps the tip of his soaked index behind Floki’s balls. He drags it down his perineum until it brushes the puckered entrance – the only part of Floki’s body besides his cock that’s still taut. Floki’s smile doesn’t falter. His bare feet drag across the furs as he spreads himself wider, pushing his lower back flat and tucking up his hips to give Ragnar access. 

“Ready?” Ragnar asks, deceptively mild. Blood pounds in his ears. If Floki says no he’ll jam his fingers in anyway, working the muscle open with force much as he did with his throat. But Floki hums and nods, stretching his arms over his head to hook his fingers around the pelt’s edge. He hides his face behind his bicep. 

Spit isn’t enough. It obviously hurts, and Ragnar forces himself to move slowly, his finger shunting forwards in tiny thrusts until it’s seated completely. Floki’s body is dry around him, squeezing like it doesn’t know whether to force him out or pull him in. Working the second finger in is like trying to force his hand through Paris’ walls, but Ragnar persists – and, teeth gritted, so does Floki. 

He has oil in his pack; it’s intended for healing wounds but useful for other purposes. It wouldn’t take a minute to find it. And it would certainly make this whole process a lot smoother. But although he is pretending to be gentle, Ragnar can’t deny himself this one moment of vindictiveness, this one moment to enjoy Floki’s pained grimace. A taster, perhaps. For what is to come. 

“You’re tighter than I expected,” he tells him. It would be cavalier from anyone else. He remembers how Lagertha used to swat his head for his lack of romance. _You either tell me you’ve ached for me the entire season,_ she’d say, laughing as she kisses him, _which is ridiculous, or else you stick your fingers in me and tell me I’m drier than a dead goat_. Aslaug is not nearly so talkative beneath the covers. And Floki, thankfully, is used to his bluntness. He rolls his hips in pained encouragement. 

“Torstein’s dead,” he says by way of explanation. His eyes are shut, hidden by the thin curve of his arm, but although his mouth tightens momentarily, it doesn’t look accusative. Ragnar almost – almost – feels a touch of guilt. It’s quickly quashed though, as his crooked fingers find what they’re looking for and Floki shudders from his head to his toes. 

“Odin curse you, Ragnar, if you don’t do that again…” So Ragnar does. He knows it takes a little while for the pleasure to set in when touching this spot – Lagertha was far from conservative in the bedroom, and Ragnar had decided early on that nothing was shameful so long as it stayed between the two of them and the gods. But from the looks of it, Floki’s hypersensitized already; his spine arches to the point of pain and he whines like a dog. His scrawny ass bucks back against Ragnar’s hand. “I’m ready, Ragnar, I’m ready; fuck me, fuck me, _fuck me_ …” 

The last word is wrung into a high-pitched wail as Ragnar massages the soft bump, pressing and rubbing relentlessly while Floki keens. His legs twitch with every rub, jerking out to the sides. When Ragnar catches one of his small, grubby nipples between his teeth, tasting old shirt and sweat, Floki’s toes curl. Ragnar keeps the pressure firm on his prostate. He rolls his fingertips in circles, careful not to brush Floki’s cock, and nibbles lightly around the areola. He doesn’t bother to ask whether it’s good. Floki’s face speaks for itself; kohl streaked from where he’s been rubbing it on his arm, bloodstained tongue swiping out over his spit-slicked lips. “Ragnar… Ragnar!” It’s a good look on him. The leer Ragnar affects isn’t all for show. He latches onto the nipple again to avoid looking too long at Floki’s face, stiffening when Floki’s fingers drag across his shaved skull in search of purchase. 

Will he regret this? Is this not a chance – a chance to repair a relationship that has been floundering since Ragnar first dragged a tonsured slave from Haraldson’s hall by his rope collar? 

But what would that repair cost him? Athelstan’s memory? Tucked into the neck of his tunic, his crucifix burns an icy brand against his chest. 

Floki sacrificed Athelstan. And so Ragnar will sacrifice Floki – their friendship, their alliance, the promise made back when none of them thought Floki would see the next morning, and Ragnar had knelt over his bed and whispered that he couldn’t die because they still had so much of the world to see. 

He will sacrifice all of it. It won’t bring Athelstan back. But it will ruin Floki, and for now, that is enough. 

Ragnar sits back. He eyes his work appreciatively; one of Floki’s nipples is significantly darker than the other, the hard nub surrounded with bruised skin and angry tooth-marks. He draws out of his fingers, slow and gentle, and rubs them off on Floki’s shin. 

“Turn over,” he says quietly. Floki struggles onto his knees and elbows. He moves too fast on unsteady legs, and Ragnar has to grab his hip to keep him from collapsing. Once he’s caught his balance, he runs his hands up Floki’s back, fingers splaying out over his shoulderblades like eagle-wings. He eases his upper half down until Floki’s face is buried in the pelt. “Stay still. I’m going to tie your hands.” 

Floki makes a noise somewhere between a snort and a hysterical laugh. The fur around his mouth flutters, dampened by his panting breath. But when Ragnar reaches down to pick up the discarded belt, he returns to find Floki has pressed his wrists together behind his back. His fists are clenched. He’s giggling under his breath, but his eyes are wide in their black circles, and they don’t focus – not on Ragnar, not on the tent wall, not on the fur waving in front of his nose. 

Ragnar resists the urge to pat his head and tell him he’s doing well. Floki doesn’t deserve comfort, he reminds himself. He touches the shivering shoulders, brushing so lightly that his touch could almost be mistaken for accidental. That is all the benediction he bestows before he lashes his wrists together, leather straps drawn tight over bone. As Floki’s hiccupping laughter eases, Ragnar ties off the belt and moves away. 

“Push up your hips and spread your legs.” It’s awkward to manoeuvre when you’re resting on your shoulders and knees. But Floki manages it – chest resting heavily on the pelts, lower back arched just enough to brace his ass up. “Now stay.” 

Considering the loosened hole presented to him, Ragnar spits on his thumb and works it carefully inside. Then he leans in and spits directly between the cheeks of Floki’s ass. He rubs the makeshift lubrication around the taut dark rim, with a hand around the other man’s cock to stop him squirming away. “I said stay.” Floki gives one more wriggle, just to be contrary. But then he stills, breath leaving him in ragged gasps as Ragnar spits, and spits again. 

“Hurry up, will you?” he chokes, voice muffled by the fur. If he wasn’t otherwise engaged, Ragnar would’ve shoved his face into the thickest part of the pelt and held it there until Floki got the message. “You can fuck me now, any time, really, I’m ready, Ragnar, please…” 

“Shut your face.” 

Ragnar keeps working until he’s satisfied. Floki’s legs are outright quaking now, his ass clenching and squeezing at the tip of Ragnar’s wet thumb. Ragnar’s hand on his cock is warm and unmoving, and when Floki tries to rut forwards into it, it’s removed entirely. He growls into the pelt but doesn’t say another word. Ragnar, meanwhile, has to turn his attention back to himself. The knowledge of what he’s going to do and the destruction it will surely wreak is curdling the faint spikes of arousal that had kept his cock at a steady half-mast, and he can taste bile at the back of his throat. He’s not Rollo. He has never had an appetite for forcing sex on people. But this… this is different. This is punishment. And as King, is his duty to see justice fulfilled. 

He spits on his hands. He strokes himself to the memory of Athelstan’s eyes closed in prayer. And he thinks of what will come. 

The few times he’s done this with Lagertha, he took her like a dog, bent over on all fours so that she had some control over the depth of the thrusts, pulling away if he got to eager and pushing back when she wanted more. Floki, trapped between Ragnar and the wolf skin, will have none of that luxury. He will be pinned with each thrust, Ragnar’s pelvis pistoning brutally down. 

And it will be brutal. 

Ragnar moves over him. His hand closes over Floki’s nape, gauging the tension there. Then he whispers a silent prayer to Odin, and begins. 

Floki groans enthusiastically when Ragnar first pushes inside. He makes another full body shudders as the head of Ragnar’s cock breaches the internal ring. His fingers curl and uncurl in their bonds, in time with Ragnar’s miniscule thrusts, mouth hanging open. Ragnar, in contrast, sets his jaw and directs his scowl at Floki’s back, safe in the assurance that the boatbuilder couldn’t twist enough to see his expression even if he’d wanted to. 

He takes his time, focussing on the sensation of opening Floki up slowly, splitting him apart with his thick, blunt cock. Ragnar’s dick is average in length. But it’s broad throughout, thickening more towards the base, and he knows how to use it. It does make these first stages painfully intense though. Edging in. Feeling Floki contract and release, attempt to control his breathing, only to jerk and contract again. He waits until he’s relaxed and Ragnar’s cock is gliding into Floki’s saliva-smeared ass with relative ease, slow on the out pull and fast on the in. 

Then he hunkers forwards over Floki’s straining back to whisper in his ear. 

“I know you killed Athelstan.” 

The effect isn’t quite immediate. Floki keeps moving for a second or so, as much as he can in his pinned position, and Ragnar obliges him, keeping up his slow thrusts as the words percolate through the madness and bliss that shroud Floki’s mind. He knows when they hit; Floki stiffens like a taut sail rope. 

“What?” he says. 

His voice shakes around that single syllable. 

Ragnar smiles and kisses the back of his neck. The pressure around his cock has increased, but he doesn’t let it bother him, thrusting hard and deep. Trapped beneath him, Floki can’t escape. He can only lay there and take it, a strangled noise escaping his throat as Ragnar pulls out almost to the tip and then slides all the way in, battering in until his balls slap Floki’s own. “What did you say, Ragnar?” he asks again. Ragnar doesn’t miss the sudden sweat that coats Floki’s back, trickling down between his shoulderblades despite the cool night air. 

“I said I know you killed Athelstan.” He punctuates every second word with a jerk of his hips. Floki winces and gasps. 

“Stop – “ 

“No.” There’s an unmistakable noise of panic from the body beneath him; it’s no longer bouncing to meet his thrusts but pressing away. Floki tries to get a knee under his body, any sort of leverage. But Ragnar doesn’t give him the chance. He drills down into him, hard and first, hip bones thudding into Floki’s ass hard enough to bruise. 

“Stop,” Floki says again. He sounds bewildered and uncertain, like he can’t quite believe this is happening. Ragnar just laughs. He finds his bound hand and squeezes it; tracing the callouses on his palm. _This is real. This is no dream. You are here, you are with me, and you are mine until I say so._ “Please stop,” Floki tries, wriggling his shoulders desperately against the furs. Ragnar does not. Now that Floki’s actively trying to escape, the resistance is significant. Ragnar tightens his abdominal panel and puts as much force behind each downwards thrust until he can muster, until the wavering candelight illuminates blood dribbling out around his cock. “You’re hurting me,” Floki squeaks, voice higher than ever. His neck is twisted uncomfortably. Ragnar can just see one eye over the crest of his shoulder. It’s shining and wide, whites showing all around the iris. There’s a film of unshed tears there. More of them gather whenever Floki’s face contracts after an especially harsh thrust. “You’ve got to stop, Ragnar.” The words are insistent and low. Somehow, Floki still believes that Ragnar will listen to him. “I don’t like this anymore – Ragnar, stop!” 

But Ragnar’s not going to stop. Not until he screams. Maybe not even then. 

“You murdered Athelstan,” is all he says. Only an awful punishment can answer an awful crime. It’s their way. Floki knows this. If anything, this is _his_ fault – his own stupid fault for ever believing Ragnar would let the priest’s death go unavenged. 

For a moment, Ragnar hates him for falling for the deception so easily. For being so gullible, so trusting. So certain that Ragnar loved him. He hates Floki for forcing him to prove him wrong. 

He thrusts at a high angle, removing any ounce of pleasure Floki might have gleaned from the act. Floki hisses and spits and tosses his head back, trying to catch Ragnar under the chin. But Ragnar is more than ready; he grabs Floki by his scraggly hair, yanking sharp and hard. Floki yelps like a kicked cur. He tugs helplessly on the belt binding his arms, wiry muscles straining. 

“I trusted Athelstan,” Ragnar continues, watching him struggle with detached interest. “I believed in Athelstan. I _loved_ Athelstan.” 

“Athelstan was a _Christian_ ,” Floki spits. His head is bent back to the point of pain. His throat bobs, chin trembling as he forces out the words. Ragnar wants to dip a finger in that bruised mouth again, wants to make Floki gag and ache at both ends. He knows he’d risk a bite though, so he makes do with tightening his grip in Floki’s hair. His blunt nails gouge deep into his scalp. 

“Athelstan was a Christian,” he agrees. “And I cared for him a thousand times more than I ever cared for you.” 

Floki chokes at that, as if Ragnar’s rejection has squeezed the very life from him. Ragnar releases his hair and Floki falls forwards, unable to catch himself, face smacking into the furs. He doesn’t attempt to raise it again. Ragnar continues to pet and play with those soft tufts of hair, rolling them between his fingers and moulding them into sweaty spikes. 

“You were my friend, once,” he says. “And so I shan’t kill you as you lie beneath me, so that you may never enter Valhalla.” The mere thought makes Floki whimper. Ragnar just said he _wouldn’t_ do such a thing, but Floki’s breathing picks up until he’s practically hyperventilating, and Ragnar thinks he hears him sob. 

Silly man. 

No doubt he is realising how foolish he has been. How stupid, to place himself entirely at the mercy of his victim’s closest friend. It will do him no good though. It is entirely too late for regrets, for either of them. And so if some small part of Ragnar shrivels in horror at the sight of Floki bleeding and struggling while Ragnar pounds him down onto the wolf-fur, he ignores it. No going back. This was what he wanted. 

“You shall die tomorrow,” he decrees. “You shall die in the battle for Paris, as you lead the charge over the walls. You will be remembered as a master builder, a genius of his craft and a devoted servant of the Gods.” His voice rises and falls in time with his thrusts, breath coming in huffs. “You shall die a warrior’s death, Floki. Do not fear for your family; I will see that Angrboda wants for nothing.” It might be tempting to take away everything Floki has ever loved, but not even Ragnar is that cruel. 

“Helga,” wheezes Floki. “What about Helga?” 

Ragnar draws back; slams in. “Helga should have turned you in. But I will not fault her for being faithful to her husband.” He strokes the tiny plait jutting out at the base of Floki’s skull. “They will live in my hall at Kattegat, if they wish. They will dine at our table and sleep in the main building, and assist Aslaug in the care of my sons.” Floki doesn’t thank him – still too much pride for that. But his face relaxes against the furs, and his breathing slows to ragged pants. 

Ragnar considers this reaction, and finds it wanting. He himself is cold and hot at the same time, arousal licking up flamelike into a chest that has felt empty since he set the crude cross over Athelstan’s grave. Hot and cold. Fire and ice. Ragnar’s mind juggles the words as his body takes its pleasure from the one beneath him. Their world was created when ice met fire across the empty void, was it not? And it will break in the same way. So, he wonders, will the union of ice and fire in Ragnar’s body be enough to break Floki? 

A brush between Floki’s legs finds flaccid flesh; the pain of their coupling has obliterated all hints of his arousal. That will not do. Ragnar takes him in hand, pausing his thrusts until he’s coaxed his lean prick back into semi-hardness. He wants Floki to desire his touch as much as he fears it. Ice and fire. Fire and ice. 

It seems to work. Floki has nowhere to go; Ragnar’s cock rests firmly against his ass, the head breaching the torn and bleeding flesh. If he moves back he’ll only push himself onto it. But to go forwards is to rub against the pelt’s coarse fur and Ragnar’s coarser hands. Trapped between pain and unwanted pleasure, Floki can only writhe and press his forehead into the soft hairs. Black paint leaves a trail when he turns his face. 

“Stop this,” he says again, grinding the words out between his clenched teeth. He doesn’t sound especially hopeful though. Ragnar doesn’t bother to voice his refusal. He snaps his hips forwards, dick sliding over that spot that had Floki writhing onto his fingers, but this time, all he gets is a pained shudder. He savours it nevertheless. 

A minute passes in silence, but for the slap of skin on skin and Floki’s hitching exhalations. Ragnar jerks him off at a counterpoint to his thrusts. His cock is leaking steadily now, although Floki’s eyes are scrunched shut and his hands have bunched into tight fists where they are sandwiched against Ragnar’s tensed stomach. His knuckles are white and bloodless. Ragnar notices he’s getting close, notices how he bites his lips and twists his head into the furs in denial. 

“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” he chants under his breath. Ragnar, puffing hot air between his shoulder blades, doesn’t believe him for a second. 

“No you don’t,” he whispers. He dots mocking kisses along the divots of Floki’s spine until Floki breathes out a sobbing curse and comes over his hand. Ragnar strokes him through it until his prick’s limp and he’s screwing up his face at the overstimulation. Then he drags his hand up Floki’s chest, being sure to leave a sticky trail. When he finds the nipple he’d savaged earlier he pinches it and rolls it between his fingers, his own orgasm pulsing in his groin as Floki keens and tries fruitlessly to pull away. Ragnar finishes hard and fast. He slumps down over Floki, squashing his tied arms, and rolls them both onto their sides. 

Floki watches the candle flame dance while Ragnar catches his breath. “I hate you,” he insists, Ragnar still inside him. Ragnar shrugs and nuzzles the back of his neck. 

“I hate you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Read, review, etc., etc.


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